Vengeance is a Dish Best Seved Chocolate
by Adema
Summary: When Helga reads a passage from Arnold's little journal over his secret crush, hardly anyone is left un-"moved"


Title: Vengeance is a Dish Best Served Chocolate Genre: TV Show; Hey Arnold By: Lavonne Eudy 

_ A regular day in the cafeteria. The same garbage being dumped on the different trays passing by the smelly, hairy old lunch ladies with the long black things hanging from their moles. But I never miss a single one if I can help it. It's the one time that I can stare at **her** without being seen, without being called on by my teachers to pay attention in class. The lunch time with the hairy, smelly lunch ladies is well worth the moldy mystery meat we have every Thursday._

    Arnold sighed once more as he watched the object of his long time obsession momentarily from his tiny black book he jotted down his thoughts in.     _Sometimes the way she stares me down gives me butterflies_, he wrote.     "Hey, Football Head, what're you writing?" said a familiar and harsh voice from behind him. It startled him enough to snap his black book shut and turn to Helga quickly.     "Just some stuff," he answered, feeling a drizzle of sweat run down his face.     "Oh, really? What kind of stuff?" Helga said, successfully snatching away the book from Arnold as he made attempts to get it back.     "What's this!" she said reading over the current page he had been writing in where the pages had creased. She managed to hide the anger that filled her as he read the love-sick writings inside the page. Unable to control her rage she tore it out and wadded up in her mouth.     "Spitball number 54!" she said and shot it out where it made a perfect splat across his head. Then she walked off, mumbling to herself something that Arnold couldn't hear. He paid no attention as he wiped the gooey spitball from his head and sighed heavy relief. He then sat down and began to write some more. "She gives me _butterflies_!" Helga said to herself in a tiny, sarcastic voice. "Well we'll just see what kind of feeling I can give that little twit ... who-_ever_ she may be when I get done ramming my fist down her throat." Then she stopped to think. "First, I just have to find out who she is." Helga put her finger to her chin. "And I have a good idea exactly where I can start." Helga chuckled maniacally to herself thinking of the perfect time to make good on her evil plan ... Recess!     Arnold met with Gerald outside when lunch was over. He had time before the bell rang.     "Man, what happened to you?" Gerald asked when he saw the smear in Arnold's hair.     "Helga happened," Arnold replied. "I'll tell you about it during Recess."     "Hey, you want my apple sauce?" Gerald asked.     "Nah," Arnold replied. "I didn't eat anything. I sorta lost my appetite." Just then the bell rang. Both boys considered that the conclusion to their discussion and left for class. ~*~ Helga sat in class making a list of potentially rotten things she could do to whomever was going to be her victim during recess. But there really wasn't a question of who that was actually going to be.     "Stupid Lila," she whispered to herself. "Sure, I have always known of his undying ..." she gritted her teeth before spitting out the rest of that statement, "_affection_ for her, but actually 'reading' them, like seeing his desire in mere words, oozing with sick pining and obsessive need--Who _thinks_ about someone that much?" She scratched the surface of her desk with her nails, watching as Arnold's likeness began to take shape. "Who has that kind of obsession!" she thought out-loud. "It's so ... so twisted!" Then she looked around to see if anyone was listening to her. Then she continued her thoughts. "Well, after class, Little Lila will get her fair share of the 'pangs' of undying affection!--But I have to be sly. If it gets out that I, Helga Patake, had beaten up some unsuspecting girl that others are well aware is the object of Arnold's sick obsession, then it could be traced back to an act of passionate jealousy on my part. No ... my vengeance must be the perfect crime." When Helga looked up for her maniacal--but still quiet--laugh, she found that the class had emptied.     "Miss Patake," Mr. Simmon's said to her from across his desk, "when you're done rehearsing what ever little play you've concocted, you may join the others for recess."     Helga blushed violently, then slinked off the seat of her desk and left the room. 

  
  


~*~

  
"Why don't you just tell her and get it over with. It's gotta be better than sitting around wondering all the time," Gerald said as he and Arnold stood listlessly in the basketball court.     "There's no wondering about it, she hates me."     "Oh, no doubt about that," Gerald said. "But it might be worth gettin' off your chest or something. She might even be flattered."     "I'm sure that would work out on a TV show, and stuff, but in the real world she would just go around making fun of me. I think I'm better off keeping it to myself for now." He then tossed the basketball narrowly missing the hoop by an inch. "It'll just give her more to use against me." He tossed Gerald the ball, getting ready to check him.     As they played, Helga walked around the park determining her course of action. And just as she came up with the first tactic of Helga versus Mega-Twit, she ran smack into Lila.     "Ah, Lila, just the victim--the person I wanted to see."     "Hello, Helga. I'm ever so glad to be of service. How can I help you?"     Helga put her arm across Lila's shoulder. "Let's walk," she said. They had gotten as far as the twisted slide when Helga pulled up the chocolate-flavored Exlax given to her for the occasional price she paid over her dearly-loved peanut butter and cheese sandwiches. They had foil wrappings looking like Hershey's Nuggets. Something that Helga came up with in the slight chance that another would see her taking it, they could assume that it was simple candy, and not her shameful secret. For now they would do just nicely in her little plan of cold-served vengeance.     "My best friend gave me these to hold onto because she keeps getting caught with them in class and Mr. Simmons takes 'em away every time. I heard he has, like, this whole month's worth in his desk." She snickered for a second, then composed so she could continue. "Anyway, darn it all if I can't resist the temptation of snacking on one or two or _all_ of them. You think I can trust you to keep 'em till the school bell rings?"     Lila was overcome with flattery. "Helga," she said sweetly, "Why I am ever so honored that you would entrust me with the same kind of duty your own best friend had entrusted to you. I never knew you felt this way."     Easy stomach ... Helga thought to herself, still holding that smile. It would be worth it if the little twit finds she can't resist a piece either. Lila'll get sick, I shall be avenged, and no one else would be the wiser.     "Do you think that Phoebe would mind if I sneaked a taste myself?"     "Why, I have every reason to believe that she would offer one herself!" Helga said. "If she were here. I already had one. She gave me plenty of them, so I doubt one more would be missed."     It was difficult for Helga to retain her excitement. After all, letting the victim in on the gag before it had a real chance to "erupt" would spoil everything. Plus it would ruin her not-getting-caught theory her vengeance revolved around. But she still smiled a little when she saw Lila pop the nugget in her mouth.     "I was unable to attend lunch as I had been stuck in study hall trying to finish the homework I kept putting off. I'm ever so grateful, Helga," she said. Just then the recess bell rang. Lila turned to it, getting her gooey treat down. "Well, I guess we'll meet again in class." Then she hugged her books up to her chest. As Lila left, Helga found herself remembering Arnold's writings. "Lunch period was where he was ogling her," she said. "Uh ... hm." Helga than bent down to pick up her jacket. and went back to class as well. 

  
  


~*~

  
"Helga Patake had given these to me to hold onto. But I didn't have lunch today, and I'm ever so worried that I cannot be trusted with them either," Lila said to Rhonda.     "Sure, I'll hold on to them," she said, then took the candy. Then she looked at them for a moment. "D'ya think that ...maybe I could have a little taste?"     "I'm not so sure it's the best thing," Lila said.     "Oh, don't worry, I won't get anymore than that. I promise."     "You really promise?" Lila asked. "If Helga knew that I couldn't be trusted with the candy, she might not trust me with anything else. That would be ever so disappointing."     "No problem," Rhonda said, then she popped one of the chocolates in her mouth. Just then Lila felt a percolation down deep in her belly.     She raised her hand quickly.     Helga snickered to herself watching Lila leave the room quickly after being granted a rest room break. But that luxury was short-lived as what Lila had said earlier about being in Study Hall instead of the cafeteria continued to nag at her. "Well if she wasn't at lunch, who was Arnold writing about?" she whispered. "Could it be that Arnold's heart has managed to shift to another whom my victimizing has not yet breached? Who is this girl that I may tear a new one should we come face-to-face? The only way to find out is to snoop. But I will have to do it quickly as this school day is rearing to end soon."     "Hey, Helga?' Harold asked her from out of no where.     "What!?" she said.     "You got anymore candy?"     "Wh-What candy?" she asked, genuinely confused.     "The candy that you gave Lila, who then gave it to Rhonda, who then gave one to everybody else."     "What?!?!" she said. She then shot eyes to Rhonda.     "Well ...?" the boy asked.     "NO I haven't got anymore, Pink Boy! Leave me alone!" Harold ended the conversation, and Helga turned to the front, clutching her head in her hands.     "Oh boy!" she said.     Just then another hand went up. "May I be excused?" she heard from her right. She slunk down somewhat in her seat. Then another hand, another request, and each time Helga drooped even lower than before.     "And I _trusted_ her!" she thought out-loud. "That conniving little bit--"     "May I be excused!" said another kid. Helga dropped her head on her desk, covering it with her arms. Thank God she had only given Lila a handful. Maybe there was a chance that she could get out of this without getting caught. She also raised her hand to be excused as well.     As Helga walked around the hallway, she was mumbling to herself. "So this blew up a little. All right, whatever. It'll pass. This might even make its way to the other little twerp who had the audacity to swivel her little hoochie backside around Arnold! And so my vengeance will be exacted, and I will have my satisfaction!" Just then she literally ran into Arnold rushing through the hallway with dire urgency.     "Watch where you're going, Football Head!' she snapped at him.     "Sorry Helga, I don't have time to talk! Nature's calling in a big way."     "What?" she said, softening her tone. But Arnold didn't reply, as he pushed his way past her and went to the boy's bathroom.     "Oh no!" she said clasping her mouth. "In my drive for vengeance I have succeeded in nothing more than poisoning my dear, sweet Arnold! What have I done!?"     She fished around in her pocket. She had found the last three of those laxatives. It caught her for a moment on how she could have missed them. But then she looked beyond that to see what their potential was.     "Yes," she said eyeing them with specific concentration. "I will punish myself with the same unthinkable cruelty I have somehow unleashed on my beloved. And I will join him in his inexplicable torment." She quickly gobbled them down. 

  
  


~*~

  
When Lila finished what it was she had been excused to do she had a thought. She inspected the piece of chocolate she wanted to hold onto for later, not really giving them all to Rhonda. It was a good thing too, because it was then that she saw the Exlax name marked into the nugget.     "Well, I never!" she said. "Helga must have been aware that I had not eaten at all today, therefore unable to resist the ever so sweet temptation of chocolate. But she will not get the last laugh on me."     She then stopped what she was doing as she watched Helga, for whatever reason, consume three of the Exlax she had offered as candy herself. No matter. It gave Lila a most bold, and ever so dirty idea for pay back her innocent little mind could conceive. She smiled wickedly, going to the girl's rest room door first.     Soon Helga was stampeding through the hallway as her self-inflicted punishment kicked in. She then saw Lila emerging from the girl's rest room.     "Outta my way, sister!" Helga said, then tore through the bathroom, not really taking a good look at it. When she shut the door to the stall, it was then that Lila replaced the boy's rest room sign back where it was supposed to be. And no sooner had she done that did Arnold come back around.     "Excuse me," he said, going through the door, because he had left his jacket in the stall he had used.     The sound coming from Helga's stall reverberated through the acoustical bathroom, and she felt like something had exploded. The smell was enough to make a person's eyes water. But the wave finally passed. Soon she emerged from the stall, sweaty and relieved ... and staring dead on at Arnold. ...     It seemed that everyone in the school had jerked around to the source of the very loud and agonizing scream that flooded the school building suddenly.     "What are doing in here, Football Head!" she yelled, having no other reaction that she could get to emerge.     "I should be asking you that," Arnold said. "This is the boy's bathroom."     Helga's jaw dropped open. From the door there was the most tinkering, yet evil laugh next to her own.     "Did you see a jacket in there?" Arnold asked. Helga was wide-eyed as she handed the jacket to him. Then Arnold turned around and walked quietly out of the bathroom. 

  
  


~*~

  
When the school day ended, Helga raced up to her room, slammed the door, and went straight to her Arnold Shrine.     "Oh, Arnold, my love," she said kneeling in front of it. "How could it be that you were there to witness me in such disarray? My life is over!" She felt her stomach beginning to percolate again. "Oh boy!" she said, then rose to her feet quickly. 

  
  


~*~

  
"What happened?" Gerald said when he ran into Arnold. "Did you get the to tell Helga you liked her?"     "It was too weird," he said. "The timing was bad. It was really, _really_ bad."     "So ... tell her tomorrow, or something."     "Yeah," Arnold sighed. "Yeah, I guess I could." They both walked home. Contrary to Helga's first impression, Arnold hadn't been racing to the bathroom because of taking any of the laxatives. It was more or less spending three minutes straight at the water fountain from playing a rough one-on-one with Gerald. So he was perfectly fine to return to school the next day.     However ...     "No, I'm afraid Helga needs to be excused from school today," her mother said over the phone to Helga's teacher. "You see, she's having terrible diarrhea." There was a pause. "Okay, thank you," she said.     "Well, at least something went right," Helga thought to herself. "I can't imagine facing Arnold, again, after what had happened yesterday. I just hope he's forgotten all about it by Monday." THE END 


End file.
